Sydney's shrinking blue-collar sector

Matt Wade

Blue-collar strongholds in Sydney's west have shrunk dramatically over the past decade and some close to the central business district have vanished altogether as the city's employment profile becomes increasingly white collar.

The number of Sydney suburbs where more than 40 per cent of workers are in blue-collar jobs has fallen by almost half over the past 10 years. At the same time, the number of neighbourhoods where more than 80 per cent of workers were in white-collar jobs has risen by a fifth, research by Pitney Bowes Software shows.

In 2001 a clutch of inner-Sydney suburbs including Marrickville, Mascot, Botany and Arncliffe had a relatively high proportion of blue-collar workers. But the blue-collar character of those neighbourhoods had faded. The closest suburbs to Sydney's CBD that are now classified by Pitney Bowes as "very blue collar" (more than 40 per cent of workers) are Lakemba and Wiley Park about 15 kilometres to the south-west.

"The preponderance of people now living in the inner-suburbs are white-collar workers in knowledge-based industries," says Pitney Bowes chief economist, Bob Schwartz. "In many ways you are losing that eclectic mix of occupations in inner Sydney."

Pitney Bowes used census data to identify areas with above-average proportions of blue-collar and white-collar workers. It classified machinery operators, drivers, labourers, technicians and those working in trades as blue collar while managers, professionals, clerical and administration workers, sales workers and those employed in community and personal services were deemed white collar. The analysis found the proportion of blue-collar workers across Greater Sydney fell from 28.3 per cent to 25.2 per cent between 2001 and 2011.

The white-collar takeover was most evident south of the harbour - a belt of neighbourhoods where more than 80 per cent of workers are white collar now stretches from Bondi to Homebush Bay. Meanwhile the traditional white-collar stronghold north of the harbour has expanded to the west. The proportion of white-collar workers in Baulkham Hills, for example, rose above 80 per cent for the first time in 2011.

The number of areas classified "very white collar" (more than 90 per cent) has also expanded markedly. In 2001 only the North Sydney-Lavender Bay area was in that category but by 2011 another seven areas had more than 90 per cent of the population working in white-collar jobs - Cremorne-Cammeray, Mosman, Neutral Bay-Kirribilli, Double Bay-Bellevue Hill, Rose Bay-Vaucluse, Paddington-Moore Park, Woollahra and Balmain. Woollahra had the highest proportion of white-collar workers - 91.2 per cent.

Mr Schwartz said one reason for the dwindling proportion of blue-collar employees in inner-Sydney was that many industries that traditionally employed those workers - such as logistics, manufacturing and construction - have moved because of high property prices. "It's not surprising blue-collar workers are heading west," he said.

The analysis found blue-collar workers were a majority in just three of Greater Sydney's statistical areas - the Ashcroft-Busby-Millar area near Liverpool (51.6 per cent), Cabramatta-Lansvale (51.4) and the Bidwell-Hebersham-Emerton (50.4) area near Mount Druitt.